In a search for further Easter-eggery, I did a location search from "Police Telephone Box" to "Gallifrey," and I got driving directions to a place called The Who Shop, apparently a Doctor Who memorabilia/merchandise store on Barking Road, London. I tried "Metebelis III," but Google Maps didn't recognize it. (Granted, the Doctor had trouble getting there himself...) I guess there's a limit to how elaborate the Easter egg is -- so far.

Really? Is it a working police telephone of some sort, or just a tourist attraction?

Click to expand...

It is a genuine, used by the police, police box (though the design is a bit of an indulgence. And possibly an attempt by the police to re-establish their claim on the design after the earlier copyright dispute with the BBC... though that's mainly my speculation).
Its main purpose is as a backup access point for the emergency control room systems in the tube station itself, ISTR.

The down side to the Earl's Court box arriving is that the mini-boxes (a sort of stripped-down police box, just the phone on a plinth, but with the same style - the Stan Laurel to the TARDIS's Oliver Hardy, as it were) that were all over the City of London through till the 1990s seem to have been stripped out over the 10 years or so.

Funny I used to live in Earls Court and never noticed that police box until about a year after I moved in! I do marvel at it. For the smaller versions mentioned above now that I think about it there is a mini one at the entrance to Houndsditch at the entrance to the City of London by the police check point (never really manned). Never thought about that one til you mentioned it!